Isn’t that what the human brain project in the EU is trying to do?
I don’t know, but I imagine that directly enhancing the human brain is going to get more traction, at least early on. People are going to feel unsure that the digitized version of them is really “them”, at least in the beginning. I would guess, anyway.
This may not be as practical as emulation. With emulation, you can rip out functional pieces of the brain - such as the pattern of the circuits in just the vector processing region of the visual cortex - and use them to do useful, real world tasks. Over time you’ll rip out more and more complex models, using them to make money, until you have the technology to emulate an entire brain. Also, said emulations should be lighting fast, much faster than the actual brain. Some argue that the progressgoogle has made recently are from copying specific tricks that nature uses.
With trying to enhance a human, you have to stick some foreign object in an incredibly delicate structure. You have to wait decades to get through all the approval processes. Or, you can just skip all the red tape and improve your emulation every few months as you think of new ideas.